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APT has six skins :

 

 

Note that after skin change there is need to restart APT.

 

 

When enabled the icon color in Windows Task Bar will match the color of the select skin. It is useful when you run multiple APT instances as gives easy way to identify the instances in task bar.

 

 

Depending on the screen aspect ratio APT can place the Status Panel on different places in order to use the screen place better and show bigger preview image. When Auto option is selected on wide screens the Status is vertical in left of Image Preview like it is in the Main Screen image, On 4:3 screens it is horizontal under Image Preview. The other options defines the desired position no matter the screen ratio.

 

This option can useful when APT is running on one computer and remote connection is made on other with different screen ratio. Or when APT is running mainly in window mode and you want different arragment.

 

 

 

Defines special language support like Japanese and Chinese. The Auto option lives the letters displaying, folder and filenames handling to Windows.

 

 

When enabled APT will use the old approach of interface which includes total control over screen that doesn't allow to see taskbar and also use small floating screen when is minimized (see Minimized mode). This mode has some problems under Windows 10.

 

 

 

 

When enabled APT will not generate/show thumbnail images in Img Browser Tab.

 

 

When enabled APT will show in Img Browser Tab only the names of the image and will hide the folders. When disabled the list will contain both the images and the folder.

 

 

By default the folders in Img Tab are in descending order. Enable this option if you want ascending folders order.

 

 

Defines observer's name that to be stored in the FITS header.

 

When enabled and LiveView is activated APT sets some parameters in Camera Tab (depends on the APT mode) in order to get maximum sensitivity.

 

 

 

When LiveView is stopped the parameters in Camera Tab are restored to their previous values.

 

Disable this option if you don't want APT to change the Camera Tab settings on LiveView start.

 

 

Defines the maximum ISO to set for LiveView Automation. Some modern DSLRs support extremely high ISO values which are useless for astro needs. Using this option you can limit the ISO. Empty value or 0 defines to use the maximum supported by the camera.

 

 

When enabled APT will take care managing the state of Mirror Locking custom function in EOS camera menu.

 

Note: Magic Lantern takes control over the Mirror Locking function and makes it un-accessible for APT. You will have to uninstall  Magic Lantern or will have to enable/disable Mirror Locking function manually from the camera menu.

 

 

Defines that the selected Long Exposure serial/shutter cable is based on the KMtronic USB Relay board. This cable is very easy to be made. Instructions can be found here

 

 

Defines the folder where image files are to be stored. Any existing local or network folder can be used.

 

 

Opens a dialog box that allows selecting an existing Images Path folder.

 

 

Defines how you want to group the image files.  It opens a dialog box where you can include and exclude the sub-folder to be used to organize image files.

 

 

The button "->" includes an item, "<-" excludes an item. Up/Down change the order.

 

The items marked with * are mandatory.

 

When you click on OK take a look on "Sample Path" to see how the folder structure will look like.

 

 

Defines what you want to include in the name the image files. It opens a dialog box where you can include and exclude name parts.

 

 

The button "->" includes an item, "<-" excludes an item. Up/Down change the order.

 

The items marked with * are mandatory and at least one item with ** should be used.

 

When you click on OK take a look on "Sample Name" to see how the image names will look like.

 

For DSLRs the Image ID is provided by the camera. For CCD/CMOS is sequential number preserved between the sessions. It can be reset from Reset Image ID button in CCD Settings tab

 

 

Shows how the folder structure will look like depending on the items selected in Files Grouping dialog box.

 

 

Shows how the image filename will look like depending on the items selected in Name Parts dialog box.

 

 

APT logs various information about the program behavior and usage. In case of problem use this button to save the Log file somewhere and then send it to the APT support.

 

 

Backups all APT settings. The file can be used to setup identical configuration on other machine or just for backup.

 

 

Restores the settings previously saved to a file. APT creates restore point every time when it starts and keeps the last 10 restore points. If it happens a problem to be detected during the APT start it automatically will use the last restore point. However you can restore the settings from other point or from a backup file you have made. Here is how the Restore Settings dialog box looks like:

 

 

 

When disabled all spaces in Object Name, Observer Name and etc will be removed from the file and folder names. This makes much easier the files grouping in WBP - Weighted Batch Preprocessing script in PixInsight.

 

 

When enabled APT will generate the files names using the pattern Keyword_Values like :

 

PLANSHORT_L_FILTER_L_IMGID_0221_ISOBIN_Bin1x1_EXP_5s_EXIF__-8C_OFFSET_OFS20_GAIN_G-100.FITS

 

This makes much easier the files grouping in WBP - Weighted Batch Preprocessing script in PixInsight.

 

 

 

Allows easily importing translated to other language tooltips help. Starting from version 3.40, during the installation APT will not overwrite the applied tooltips translations so you have to re-apply them only when there is a new edition of the translated help.